Such apparatuses are frequently used for the constant allocation of conveyed products or articles onto single lanes of a multilane conveyor belt. The conveyor belt itself forms the infeed to a packing machine or a machine for assembling packs. It can happen that the articles to be transported are not allocated equally in the single lanes of the conveyor belt. In order to achieve equal allocation, the respective single lanes of the conveyor belt are provided with individual driving motors. Therefore, it is possible to drive the single lanes of the conveyor belt differently with speed control so that equal allocation of the articles can be achieved in the lanes.
German Patent DE 38 40 647 discloses an apparatus for transporting printed products. The conveying device conveys the products from a first longitudinal conveying means to two mutually spaced longitudinal conveying means. The space in between the conveying means is bridged by two separately pivotable groups of four conveying elements. Each conveying element is mounted swivellably about a respective vertical shaft mounted at its rear end. These shafts serve simultaneously for driving the conveyor belt, a common driving element in the form of an endless chain being provided for this purpose. The conveying elements have a large swivel area and make it possible for products of different formats to be conveyed.
German Patent DE 10 2006 039 086 discloses a belt feeder. The belt feeder consists of several transport belts, wherein each of said transport belts forms a corporate loop and being endlessly drivable in a circumferential manner. The loops are positioned in such a way that they adjoin one another laterally by the upper length of their loop and form a common horizontal or substantially horizontal transport surface. In order to achieve equal allocation of the products in the single tracks or lanes of a conveyor belt being connected with the belt feeder, a drive with one sole drive motor is provided at the belts of the belt feeder. The transport belts are connected to a drive, wherein said drive is connected to the driving motor and designed as a triggering mechanism in such a way that the speed of at least one transport belt being gradually changeable by switching the drive. The single belts of the transport belt being connected downstream of the belt feeder are driven with one sole motor providing all of the transport belts with the same speed.
German Patent DE 42 13 557 B4 discloses a bottle or can multi-row stream for forming upright standing bottles or cans, wherein said bottles or cans leaving a treatment machine on an outlet conveyor belt in a single row from the discharge starwheel of said treatment machine and are converted into a multi-row flow of low velocity and nearly without gaps. The single row of bottles or cans is led over by a guide element from the outlet conveyor belt onto a conveyor belt being attached to the outlet conveyor belt and running with low velocity, wherein said conveyor belt consists of several conveying sections. Thereby, at least the conveying section which is firstly attached to the outlet conveyor belt is parallel to the outlet conveyor belt. The guide element ranges from the discharge starwheel to the conveying sections, wherein the conveying sections are gradually driven with decreasing velocity.
German utility model DE 20 2005 013 125 U1 discloses a single-lane container flow forming apparatus. Thereby, the multilane container flow is formed into several single lane container rows. The apparatus comprises a conveyor for the container flow, several discharge conveyors for the container rows, an intermediate area which is connected to the conveyor and having several lanes divided by parallel guiding rails each with two tracks. A separating area connects the intermediate area with the discharge conveyor and has several lanes divided by bevel guiding rails. The bevel guiding rails narrow from two lanes to one lane. The lane of the intermediate area has a separate carrier having a variable drive. The variable drive is thereby controllable via a container sensor which is positioned at the respective lane of the intermediate area and/or the separating area.